Recent content by John Brill

No, you don't need the NAD preamp, your Yamaha RX-V3900 pre-outs are exactly for this. Personally, the NAD 275BEE is a little bit on the pricey side (~$1300?) when you consider the Emotiva XPA-2 is only $799. However, if you can get the NAD for ~$1000 (or less!) or pick up a used 2 channel NAD...

Yes.

I hear you. In my old house, the previous owner had built-ins done next to the fireplace that were only 12" deep not giving me enough room for my AVR at the time. Lucky for me, the back of the built-in was simply painted wall which I was able to cut out and box in giving me another 4 1/2". It...

The Technics SE-9021 is already an "external amp". No need to take it apart. Simply feed the Left and Right channels using the analog outs of your Audio/Video Reciever (AVR) into the Left and Right inputs of the Technics SE9021.

1 and 2) Seems like the H/K BDS series meets your needs. At 10 1/4 inches deep and allow an inch for cabling it will fit. Lucky for you, H/K has a reputation for being conservative with their power ratings. That said, 65wpc in 6 ohms is a good thing for 8 ohm speakers. Not a good thing for 4 ohm...

Better than the Onkyo 2-channel amp would be the Emotiva UPA-2.

Between the two? I'd pick the Denon AVR 1911 simply because of Audessey. If you can squeeze out $100 more, the Marantz SR5005 would be my hands down favourite :rolleyes:. Come on, you know you want to! :D

1) Why not upgrade your Roku XD to the XDS model and get the built in toslink and component video?

Pass on the Polk RM85's. Simply not worth the upgrade as your subs easily handle the lower end of the spectrum and I'm sure what you have now is as good, and probably better than the tiny Polks. On the receiver side, though, an upgrade will give you a couple of added features missing from your...

Its the nature of HDMI unfortunately. Part of the licensing agreement with product manufacturers is to prevent pass through to analog outputs (presumably to deter copying of digital content). You could try an HDMI to 5 RCA (component + audio) converter (~$40 on amazon) and see if that solves...

When watching a movie, 70% of the sound is vocals coming out of your center channel, 20-25% is music from the left and right fronts leaving less than 5-10% for "ambient sounds and effects" for your surround speakers. Also, surround speakers tend to be be smaller for exactly that reason. Also...

Absolutely. Don't forget that the Marantz 6005 is also a quite capable 7.1 receiver. You could, instead of the XPA-5, simply get the XPA-2 to drive the front 2 towers and power the rest of your speakers using the Marantz 6005. Or, as many do, get an XPA-3 to drive the towers and center channel...

Sound wise, your speakers will play a much bigger role in quality than the AVR. If you hid the two ARV's behind a curtain, I'd be willing to bet that if I switched speakers back and forth 10 times, you would be correct 5 times as to whether it was the Denon playing or the Marantz. In other...

The main reason why I'm recommending this approach. Marantz has, in my opinion, a better "musicality" sound to it for music listening while the clean power of the Emotiva XPA-5 will surpass anything Denon or Yamaha (or any other AVR) under $2000+ will provide. In fact, the NAD T775 will run you...

Comparable to the Denon 4311 I listed above. However, if I had ~$1500 as a budget, I'd go the Emotiva XPA-5 ($769) with a Marantz 6005 AVR ($589) as a pre-pro.